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French genocide bill angers Turkey

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  • French genocide bill angers Turkey

    The Australian
    Dec 19 2011


    French genocide bill angers Turkey From: The Australian

    December 19, 2011 12:00AM

    TURKEY'S prime minister yesterday sharply criticised France for a bill
    that would make it a crime to deny the World War I-era mass killing of
    Armenians was genocide.

    Saying France should investigate what he claimed was its own "dirty
    and bloody history" in Algeria and Rwanda, Recep Tayyip Erdogan
    insisted Turkey would respond "through all kinds of diplomatic means".

    Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by
    Ottoman Turks as their empire collapsed, an event many international
    experts regard as genocide and that France recognised as such in 2001.

    Turkish leaders reject the term, arguing that the toll is inflated,
    that there were deaths on both sides and that those killed were
    victims of civil war and unrest.

    On December 22, the lower house of French parliament will debate a
    proposal that would make denying that the massacre was genocide
    punishable by up to a year in prison and 45,000 ($58,500) in fines,
    putting it on par with Holocaust denial, banned in the country in
    1990. Mr Erdogan criticised France yesterday, saying there were
    reports that France was responsible for the deaths of 45,000 people in
    Algeria in 1945 and for the massacre of up to 800,000 people in Rwanda
    in 1994.

    ..."No historian, no politician can see genocide in our history," Mr
    Erdogan said. "Those who do want to see genocide should turn around
    and look at their own dirty and bloody history.

    "The French National Assembly should shed light on Algeria, it should
    shed light on Rwanda," he said.

    France had troops in Rwanda, and Rwandan President Paul Kagame has
    accused the country of doing little to stop the country's genocide.

    There was no immediate reaction from France. Ties between the two
    countries are already strained by French President Nicolas Sarkozy's
    opposition to Turkey's bid to join the EU.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/french-genocide-bill-angers-turkey/story-e6frg6so-1226225157391

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